


Watching You Drown

by coffeehousehaunt



Category: Lost Girl
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/F, Jealousy, Morridoc, One-Shot, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-30
Updated: 2014-03-30
Packaged: 2018-01-17 15:00:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1391992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeehousehaunt/pseuds/coffeehousehaunt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lauren bakes, Evony seduces, Bo breaks things--but they're all scared of something. Evony's just the one with a plan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Watching You Drown

**Author's Note:**

> For a prompt from Natasi--"Morridoc, "loosen up already.'" 
> 
> This kind of grew together with the prompt I got from Vunderbarh, because I got them around the same time. I think I'm actually starting to build my Season 4 fix-it headcanon. 
> 
> I'm... utterly at a loss as to how to write Evony. So, I tried to catch her character in transition, and I hope this version does her justice. And writing Lauren in this was a little bit disturbing for me. 
> 
> Title is from "Heart Killer", by Gossling. Of course.

"You're baking again." Her voice rings flatly from the kitchen's entrance, and even _that_ plays along Lauren's nerves like a knife. 

"Evony--" She closes her eyes against the grating stutter of irritation in her stomach and sighs. "Yes. Yes, I am." 

Evony tilts her head so that her narrowing eyes catch the light and suddenly seem far too bright to be human, and it used to be menacing when she was the Morrígan, but now, Lauren desperately _does not care_. She needed a project tonight, and she figured home would make it easier for her to check up on Evony and distract herself. It's only made it easier for Evony to annoy her, though. 

"Is this about Bo and Tamsin?" 

She just _has_ to say it. Out loud. At least cookies and petri dishes don't _talk_ to her. She grits her teeth. " _Bo_ is taking care of a biological necessity. One that we've known about for quite some time now, and we've worked out ways to deal with it. This is the best way. I'm just... gathering data. On myself. Learning." 

"Oh, honey." _Another_ Morrígan look. Has she realized parlor tricks _don't work_ when she can't melt people? And it looks fucking ridiculous when Evony raises a cookie to her mouth and takes a bite. "How do you learn anything if you cope by pretending the thing that scares you isn't happening?" 

"I'm not scared!" She can feel the words falling out of her mouth, all together, all at once, and the weight of their meaning, but she can't stop them, not quite. Evony raises an eyebrow like _quod erat demonstrandum_ , and Lauren glares murder at her, looking doe-eyed out from under her eyelashes with that mocking kind of sympathy. It's been less than two months and Evony already seems to wear it like a goddamn dress that was made just for her. Humanity, that is. She just walks right into it and picks it up and--

Even Evony seems to be handling change better than her right now. Lauren's anger sinks and sinks and sinks in on itself. 

Evony sighs, and even the mockery seems to have gone out of her gaze, almost like she's disappointed. Lauren can't summon the energy to be pissed off about it, but she wants to. "No, you're smarter than that."

What? "What?" She was seriously _about_ to concede that Evony was right. Which has got to be a first in the history of... ever. 

Evony shakes her head as if to clear it, presses the fingertips of one hand to her temple. "God, you _humans_ \--" She looks back up, and her face is remarkably devoid of its usual superiority. "It's not uncommon, you know." 

"You are making _zero_ sense." Not that she's sure she wants her to. It occurs to her that that's precisely what Evony's talking about, though, and her brain starts to grind to life, because she'll be damned if she lets Evony be _right_ about something. 

"Non-monogamy. Isn't that what you call it? God, these words are a pain to keep track of." 

"Yes--" It clicks, and Lauren's eyes narrow. "Are you trying to be _helpful_?" 

Evony blinks. "Aren't I?" 

That stops Lauren cold, in spite of her determination to not cooperate. Apart from the gears of her brain grinding themselves smooth on reality, Lauren realizes, she's not nearly as mad as she thought. _The sociopathic former leader of the Dark Fae is giving me relationship advice, and it's making me feel_ better. While her girlfriend is out--no, she really can't think about that right now. 

"God, I'm pathetic." Lauren leans her elbows on the counter and buries her face in her hands for a moment. 

Evony rolls her eyes. "Oh, please. Save the pity party. Besides, ownership isn't for partners, it's for slaves." 

Lauren can feel some of her anger seeping back in, and she grabs onto it, relieved when she feels her glare returning. "Remind me how much you know about partnership, again?" 

"I don't have partners, darling. I have subjects and rivals." It comes out simply, immediately. Then a sigh. "Had. _Had_ subjects." She makes a disgusted sound. "What I _mean_ is, it's okay. If your succubus gets all tangled up emotionally with her valkyrie. It happens quite frequently. And it doesn't mean she'll lose interest. Lord knows if she was going to at some point, she would have already." She finishes with a grumble. 

Crazy. Lauren's going crazy. Or maybe someone slipped her something. Did Evony slip her something? Another Fae parasite? Lauren holds up her hand, mostly to stop her own train of thought. "Okay, now I _do_ feel better, and I'm not okay with it." She has to hold in a giggle as she says it, though. God, what is _wrong_ with her? 

Evony laughs, and lifts one hand to drag her fingers along Lauren's other forearm. Her nails scrape ever so slightly, and electricity dances hot along her nerves, just like Evony's voice. "Oh, loosen up already, doctor. And come have a drink with me. I promise it'll be okay." 

Lauren looks at the hand on her arm, feeling vaguely betrayed by her nerves' response, and blinks back up at Evony. "Are you getting smoother?" She's sure that's a scientific phrase; she can see the notes now: " _Subject displays increased smoothness in social interactions._ " Next entry: " _Subject now has mad social skillz._ " 

"I am feeling a little more... At ease in my skin." Her fingers wrap around and tighten on Lauren's forearm. "You don't have to write that down now." 

"But--" _I--_

"Trust me," Evony says, and she's heard _that_ line before (though not from Evony, she realizes), but there's no power, no malice, no threat; her voice is _playful_ , and for some reason, Lauren does--can feel her shoulders start to loosen out of the knots they've worked themselves into. "You won't forget." Wait, did she just read Lauren's mind? Lauren is starting to think that Evony is even more dangerous now than she was before. 

Lauren lets Evony pull her away from the counter--with an appropriate amount of heel-dragging. She has to run back to turn off the oven, though. 

* * *

Of course it's not just _one_ glass of wine; but it's not too many, either. Just enough to get Lauren talking. Evony-- _Evony_ \--talked Lauren into showing her Star Trek. And humored--no, _encouraged_ \--her side comments about cultural references and historical moments and Kirk/Spock slash, until Lauren's practically narrating commentary over the episode. Evony's lack of grating remarks is making her nervous, but that's not even in the top three things she's worried about right now. Actually, even the occasional off-color remark is becoming comforting, familiar. It must be the wine and the jealousy. 

She stops abruptly when she realizes a corner of Evony's mouth is tucked up in a smirk and there's a glint in her eye. Falters, because her first thought is that Evony's laughing at her, but there's an openness that Lauren doesn't remember seeing before. Or mischeviousness. She can't tell. And her nerves are still frazzled. 

"What?" Sue her if she sounds a little touchy. 

"Your mind," Evony says, face flushed and eyes bright. "It _is_ art." 

"Oh." Lauren blushes at that. "Well. Y'know. Science. Details." She shrugs and runs one hand up her other arm, disoriented all over again, words suddenly heavy and awkwardly shaped in her mouth. How is it that she can talk for hours about anything fictional or theoretical, but when it comes to real things like compliments, she feels like drowning? She grabs her wine glass and takes a sip, to give her mouth something to do. 

Evony laughs at that, and it's one of the least mocking sounds Lauren's ever heard her make. There's a long moment of silence after that, where Lauren is still too self-conscious to just start talking again, but she's not uncomfortable. Finally, Evony breaks it. 

"You humans find each other so compelling when you're in pain." Evony murmurs, a slight frown forming. "Is that a species-wide phenomenon?" 

Lauren laughs, a little hollowly, and it should rub her wrong, but her heart skips. It's a perfectly normal response, she tells herself, after the night she's had. "It's called _empathy_ , Evony, and it's not just a human thing. And aren't you the scientist, now?" 

Evony blinks, caught. "I mean--you're cute," she says, and Lauren laughs again, watching Evony slip back and forth, but she blushes harder, too--it's the wine, she's sure--and then Evony leans in. Lauren feels the wine in her blood--slow, deep red, sunk into her aching nerves--ignite. 

Just like earlier, Evony plays her nerves like an instrument. This time, though, Lauren thinks about the nameless hands on a lyre while her body sounds and she sees the wave graph of the frequency etched in white in her head. 

Evony might be getting smoother, but she makes a small sound against Lauren's mouth, and Lauren feels her tremble, and the rest of it, whatever's left, goes out of her head--Bo, Tamsin, Star Trek, the wine. Then it's just Lauren, taking control, pushing Evony back, intent on watching her be this _vulnerable_ for as long as Evony will let her. 

And what she finds--she doesn't feel better, exactly, but she feels _something_. She knew that this change was radical for Evony, physiologically, psychologically, but she didn't expect to be able to taste Evony's fear, feel it trembling along her skin, even when Evony's telling her not to stop. She didn't expect to feel so empathetic; she'd certainly never claim to _like_ Evony. 

Maybe it's because she feels responsible. Maybe it's because she hurts, _everywhere_ , when she lets herself feel it, and she can't stand to feel any more of it, from anyone. Either way, she covers Evony with her mouth and means it. Evony's right; it is a stupid human thing. All of it. 

"This being human thing," Evony says afterward as she strokes her fingertips down Lauren's cheek, looking at her for all the world like an art piece, and the part of Lauren's brain that hasn't shut off yet thinks that she's never seen art as a human before. "I think I'm getting better at it." 

"That makes one of us." Lauren replies.


End file.
